TIM ANDERSON: Hi, and welcome to Tech Tips from Teachers.
On this episode, we'll be looking at creation tool apps.
Our guest today is Elizabeth Calhoon
from San Jose, California.
Elizabeth currently serves as the manager
of educational technology for a large Bay Area
office of education, and previously
was a high school teacher, and also
served as vice principal for a middle school
and a high school.
She also holds a Master's in Educational Leadership.
So Elizabeth, why is technology so important in the classroom?
ELIZABETH CALHOON: Technology opens the doors
for kids around the world.
It opens the doors to information.
It opens the doors to other teachers,
as well as to other students, so that they can
learn from and with the world.
TIM ANDERSON: And then with the creation piece of things,
how does technology help to enable that?
ELIZABETH CALHOON: Well, the best part about technology
now is that it's not just about consumption.
It's that you can, in fact, create, and anyone can create.
And so students now can feel empowered by the fact
that they can learn all of this information
from around the world, take it in, and then create
so that they can contribute to the world's information
as well.
TIM ANDERSON: We've heard from teachers
that there a few key components that make creation tool
apps especially applicable to the classroom.
It's important that they're versatile,
that they make sharing easy, and that they
have simple, easy to use user interfaces.
Why is it so important that apps are
versatile for classroom use?
ELIZABETH CALHOON: Because classroom environments
are versatile.
And a teacher's environment, depending on
whether they're working with a first grader
or they're working with a third grader or a sixth grader,
is going to change on a regular, perhaps daily, basis.
And so they need to be able to have
an app that they're presenting to their students that
has longevity and that they as a teacher
can use across grade levels, in addition
to developmental levels.
Finally, I think the reason versatility
is really important is because a lot of teachers
are making lots of movement towards being
collaborative with their colleagues
across content areas.
So I may be an English teacher, but I really
want to do some work with the science teacher.
I want an app that's going to be able to bridge those two
content areas and we can work with together.
TIM ANDERSON: Gotcha.
That makes sense.
And then with that sharing piece,
why is that something that's so critical?
ELIZABETH CALHOON: For teachers to be
able to have an app where a student creates something in
and then they're able to share it among any of those programs
is hugely important.
The teacher shouldn't be spending
time trying to figure out the mechanics
of how do I export this, and how do I make this meaningful?
How do I share it with parents?
How do I share with the community?
Those are the really rich experiences,
being able to share it with a larger community.
But if the teacher can't even get it out
of the device in the first place,
or put it into a program they already have in their district,
they're not going to use it.
TIM ANDERSON: And then that last point
about having a really simple, easy to use UI.
Why is that something that you would urge developers
to put at the forefront?
ELIZABETH CALHOON: Everything we give to our students
is vetted through us first.
We look at movies before we show them.
We try to play with an app before we give it to a student.
And one of the pieces that I see teachers do time and time again
is that if somebody hasn't walked them
through a complicated application, sometimes
they're not willing to give it to their student,
because they need to feel comfortable with it first.
TIM ANDERSON: Elizabeth, tell us about Explain Everything.
Why is it so great?
ELIZABETH CARLTON: It is so fantastic mostly
because it is so versatile.
One of the great use cases that I've seen
is with elementary students.
The teacher will create a sample and then
show that to the students for them to then recreate or create
their own version of.
It encourages group work.
It encourages them to work together
to pull in from a variety of different sources.
It also allows for this cross pollination
between content areas.
So if I'm an English teacher, again,
I want to work with a science teacher,
Explain Everything is going to cross
those boundaries no problem.
TIM ANDERSON: What about Book Creator.
In this sea of creation tools, what makes that app stand out?
ELIZABETH CALHOON: So Book Creator's really fun
because you're creating a book.
It has this wonderful sharing capability
that provides for teachers to be able to share with students,
students to share with other students, and then
ultimately, for students to share
their books with the parents or the community at large.
And their knowledge and their learning
then becomes very transparent and public.
TIM ANDERSON: And then what about Comic Strip It!?
What makes that such a nice fit for the classroom?
ELIZABETH CALHOON: One of the things
that's great about it is that you have to actually synthesize
a bunch of information in order to create a comic strip.
And that can be a difficult mental process
to go through to synthesize information and make
it very concise.
And so the cleaner the user interface
is when you're creating something as complicated
as that process can be, the better the result is
going to be.
So with Comic Strip It!, you're able to take the information,
put it in a nice, neat little box.
And you have fun doing it.
TIM ANDERSON: Elizabeth, thanks so much for joining us today.
It was great having you.
ELIZABETH CALHOON: Sure, thank you.
Thanks for having me.
TIM ANDERSON: And to recap, with creation tools
in the classroom, a couple of key things to keep in mind.
It's important that these apps are versatile,
that they make sharing easy, and that they have simple user
interfaces.
For more episodes of Tech Tips from Teachers,
check out the Google Developers YouTube channel.
Thanks.
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